


love is watching someone die

by transtlanticism



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, M/M, What am I doing, basically simon is losing his memories so thats fun, god its just a lot of angst, i dont even know, im so sorry for the amount of sadness in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 11:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transtlanticism/pseuds/transtlanticism
Summary: “I don’t remember the sound of the forest fire,” he whispers. “I don’t remember the feeling of magic. I can’t hear the words you said that night. I can’t feel your hands on my skin.” His voice catches, and his gaze drops. “But I’ll love you until I can’t remember how.”Simon Snow, the Mage’s Heir, the greatest threat to magic that ever was. The one who lost his magic—and his memory along with it.





	love is watching someone die

**Author's Note:**

> i did minimal editing on this honestly so enjoy this pile of garbage

If you didn’t know the entire story of our lives, you might think we were Normals. 

Well, one of us is, anyway. It’s definitely not me.

Normals might share the same Tuesday night routine as us, anyway—the television’s on, and an old game show is playing in the background, but Simon’s engrossed in a biology textbook, and I’m rereading The Five People You Meet In Heaven, which is, honestly, no better the second time through.

Simon groans and slams the textbook shut. “I’m hungry. Want to order pizza?”

That’s the most normal sentence he’s said all day, one that rings true to the Simon Snow I’ve always known. 

“Sounds fine,” I answer, setting my book down on the table. “Pepperoni on half, Snow.”

As he ambles over to the phone, I glance around our flat.

It’s the fourth-floor place Simon and Penny moved into a few years ago, but Penny proposed to Micah the following year and moved to America to be with him, so I left Fiona’s place and moved in with Simon. I’d missed being roommates with him, although I’d never shared a space quite so close to him before.

Snow sleeps like the dead most nights. (Whereas I, the actual dead, am an incredibly light sleeper.) Occasionally, one of us will have a nightmare, which is unsurprising, considering the course of our entire lives.

Sometimes, if we both have nightmares on the same night, we’ll curl up each other and just hold on tight until we both fall asleep. 

But that was all before the first breakdown. Before our lives changed for good.

You wouldn’t think it, I reflect now, watching Simon lean back against the refrigerator, phone in hand, a small smile on his face. You wouldn’t think anything was amiss. You wouldn’t think he was falling apart, piece by piece.

…

It was the first winter after I moved in, and there was snow everywhere. Less of a pretty white fairytale and more of a disgusting, slushy mess. London has a tendency to make the snow turn grey. 

I was kicking off my boots in the front entrance when Simon came out, holding two cups of tea.

“It’s funny,” he said, passing me a mug, “that I know exactly what your favourite kind of tea is, but I can never remember how I know that. It’s not like we drank a lot of it at Watford.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, frowning at him. “I once watched you drink an entire pot of tea in one go.”

“I have no memory of this,” Simon snorted. “It sounds like me, though.”

“It was first year,” I remind him. “The day after you threw a book at me—your hand was frozen solid, and you drank an entire pot of tea in the dining hall. Rhys was cheering you on the whole time.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d had to remind Simon of specific events during our time at school, but the worrisome part was that he’d referenced this event in conversation less than a year ago.

“No clue.” His tone was still light, and I looked hard at him, trying to decide if he was kidding.

He wasn’t.

“Simon,” I said casually, “do you remember first year at all?”

“I remember the Crucible,” he said thoughtfully. “I remember hating you—although the book incident, not so much. Er…honestly, that’s it, really.” 

He looked apologetic, and there was a cold feeling in my stomach.

“That’s it?” I repeated, looking horrified. “Simon, you can’t conjure up a single solid memory of our first year at Watford?”

His forehead creased as he struggled.

“It’s like…a blank space, honestly,” he said quietly. “Like someone wiped my memory.”

I was already shoving my feet back into my boots. “Get your coat,” I said.

“Whoa, what?” Simon surged forward and grabbed my hand. “Baz. Where are we going?”

“You think someone wiped your memory?” I said. “Maybe someone did.”

…

The pizza’s here. Simon answers the door, and I sneak a peek at his biology textbook. I’ve never found science terribly interesting, and the only word I recognize is “mitochondria.”

“What are you looking at?” Simon asks, setting the pizza box in front of me.

“The powerhouse of the cell,” I say dryly. “It’s fascinating.”

“Yeah, right.” He picks a slice of pepperoni off his side of the pizza and eats it. It’s a habit I’ll never understand—he doesn’t want the pepperoni on the pizza, he wants to pick it off and eat it separately. Like, he can’t just get pepperoni elsewhere, like a normal person.

“What do you want to watch?” he asks, clicking through the channels. “Or we could watch Stranger Things again.”

“You’ve watched that three times already,” I say. “Absolutely not.”

He grins wickedly. “How about Twilight?”

It’s an old joke, and one that was never funny, but I’m so relieved that he remembers I’m a vampire that I’m not even annoyed. Instead, I lean forward and kiss him, catching him by surprise.

“Are you going to do that every time I make a stupid vampire joke?” he mumbles when I pull backward slightly. 

“Probably,” I say.

“That one’s going to be pretty hard to forget,” he warns me.

I don’t remind him that he said that about Ebb, too.

…

There are only a few magickal doctors in London, and the one I brought Simon to told us the truth of what happened—that when Simon lost his magic, his memories were tied to it. And, one by one, they were slowly fading from his mind. 

“How is this possible?” I demanded.

Most of my life has been a fucking disaster, to be honest. But I had never been more scared than at that moment, gripping Simon’s hand, being told that he was losing his memories. The last remaining connection to the World of Mages, to everyone he loves. To me.

“Likely,” she said quietly, avoiding my question, “what will happen, Simon, is that you will eventually lose everything in your memory that you associate with magic—your years at Watford, the connections you made to people you only knew through magic. You’ll remember the experiences you had without it.” She glanced at me then. “How long have you been living without magic, Simon?”

She knew. We all knew. 

“Since Christmas,” I cut in when Simon didn’t answer. “2015.”

“Can we stop it?” Simon blurted. “Is there any way to…not?”

He sounded terrified, and I squeezed his hand tighter until both of our hands had lost all circulation. 

She shook her head sadly.

I had expected to notice immediately, after that. To hear him scramble desperately to recall a phone number, or a name, or a class he’d lost somewhere in the recesses of his mind.

But it was slow, and subtle, and it came in shocks.

Like when I asked him the last time he’d been to the Wavering Wood, and he immediately replied, “Why would I go there?”

“You used to go every year,” I said uncertainly. “On Christmas night. To see Ebb.”

“Ebb,” Simon repeated blankly. 

“Ebb, Simon, Ebb. The goatherd. Ebb.”

“Ebeneza,” he blurted, then looked confused. “I don’t…know how I know that.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Who’s Ebb?” he asked me, looking exhausted. “Was she important to me?”

“She was Nicodemus Petty’s sister,” I said.

“Nicodemus had a sister?”

My heart shattered. 

“Yeah,” I said. “You’d met her. Once or twice.”

“Baz,” Simon said sharply. He was standing at the kitchen counter, leaning forward, watching me through the gap in the wall that peeked into the living room. “Tell me who she was.”

“You’d spend afternoons with her at Watford,” I said quietly. “She…the Mage killed her.” I looked at him pleadingly, desperately. “Don’t you remember the body on the floor in the White Chapel?”

His expression twisted, and he was trembling slightly, so I wrapped my arms around him and he rested his head on my shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, Simon.”

…

 

The Greatest Mage never had the greatest memory. I stop telling him things he doesn’t know, and he stops asking. 

Sometimes, he doesn’t want to remember. Sometimes, I wish I didn’t either.

Penny flies in to visit us a few weeks later. She’s spelled her hair bright red again, like in first year, and I see Simon do a double-take.

“That’s a new colour on you,” he says, fascinated. “I like it.”

Penny’s eyes drop, and she smiles in thanks, and neither of us says a word.

…

Some days are better. Those are the days I see him pick up his wand, and recite the spells he remembers, even if they never work. The days he scrawls notes for himself of things he can’t bear to forget. 

Once, Simon gave me a list of the things at Watford he’d thought about while he was on the train, and I started keeping a mental checklist of the ones he remembered.

Those days, we don’t talk about his memory or his magic at all. Those days, we both sleep easier, and I don’t wake up with panic in my chest that he’s forgotten me already.

Because that’s what my nightmares are about, most nights now. Blood and tears and Simon forgetting my existence.

He thinks if he doesn’t think about the past, maybe he won’t even notice it’s forgotten.

So, some days are better. But some days are worse.

Some days, he barely remembers where he keeps his wand. Some days, I catch him staring at his dragon wings in the mirror. Some days, he looks at me funny, like he’s trying to place a specific memory.

He gets frustrated easily. Every piece of furniture in this house has been kicked in frustration at least twice by now. 

When he gets angry, it usually doesn’t take much to calm him down. A few whispered words, a story he doesn’t remember. Sometimes, I wonder if I should tell him how often we used to fight. He doesn’t seem to have any idea.

“Tell me again,” he says, his head on my chest and his eyes closed tightly, “how we met.”

I live in fear of the day he asks how we fell in love. 

…

We keep a few old photos around the flat. A lot of them were Penny’s, that she didn’t take with her to America, but Simon’s got some of his old friends.

I come home one night, and he’s sitting at the kitchen counter, gripping a familiar gold frame, and my heart sinks through my chest. And I know what he’s about to ask me.

“This is me,” he says slowly. “Right?”

“Yeah.”

“If that’s me…” His eyes flick to the other occupant of the frame. “Who is that?”

I almost break down then and there. But I hold it in, and I take the photo from Simon and get a good look at it.

“That,” I say, managing to keep my tone even, “is Agatha Wellbelove.”

Simon’s eyes light up. “I know that name,” he says. “It’s hard to place, but I definitely know it.” His attention returns to the photo. “That’s her? She’s beautiful.”

“You always thought so,” I say, willing my voice not to catch. 

It doesn’t, and as Simon pores over the photo, I shut myself in our room and muffle my sobs in a pillow, and I let myself cry as I haven’t in a number of years.

…

When I call Agatha to tell her, she almost doesn’t answer the phone. Part of me wonders if Penny’s kept her updated on the situation, but Penny barely comes to visit anymore. I think it’s probably too painful for her to watch.

She finally picks up. “Hello?” she answers coolly.

“Wellbelove.”

“Baz.” She sounds suspicious. “What do you want?”

“It’s about Simon.”

“What about Simon?”

I hesitate. 

“Baz.”

“Penelope really didn’t tell you?” I say.

“Penelope hasn’t told me anything,” Agatha snaps. “So help me, Baz, I will block your number and—“

“Is there anything,” I say desperately, “that Simon would vividly remember about you? Something that happened at Watford?”

She pauses, and when she speaks again, her tone is far less indignant. “Why?”

I’m not sure if I should tell her. But I do. 

I tell her everything.

When I tell her about the picture, I can hear her inhale sharply over the phone.

“He doesn’t remember me,” she says numbly.

“He doesn’t remember a lot of things,” I say heavily.

“My Simon,” she whispers, and I have to fight the urge to remind her that he’s not her anything.

“You should come to London,” I tell her.

“Maybe I will.” 

She hangs up, and I watch the rain fall outside.

…

She never comes to London.

…

And so I watch Simon lose himself.

When he wakes up in the middle of the night, breathing quickly, fire in his eyes, I pull him close and let him bury his face in my shoulder. 

“I saw the Mage,” he whispers to me. “I saw the Humdrum. I saw you die.”

“I’m right here,” I say, smoothing his golden curls from his face. “I’m here.”

His face is tortured. “I saw Ebb. I saw Agatha. They’re real.”

I suck in a breath. “You remember them.”

“They’re real, Baz.”

But his voice is drowned by sleep, and when he wakes up in the morning, I casually mention that I heard from Agatha recently, and he doesn’t react at all.

“Agatha,” he says slowly, spooning Cinnamon Toast Crunch into his mouth. “That’s my ex, right? The one in California?”

“Yeah.” I can’t look at him. “That’s the one.”

…

He finally asks.

It’s a cold night, and we’re huddled under a blanket on the couch, the TV off, neither of us willing to leave our comfortable position to get up and go to bed.

“Baz,” he says sleepily. “How did we get together?”

I stiffen. “You don’t remember?”

His look is apologetic. 

“We were enemies,” he says slowly. “For a long time. How did that…change?”

“We were always enemies,” I say. “But I was always in love with you.” It’s something I’ve never told him, even when his memories were intact.

“Was I?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “If you were, you did an excellent job of pretending not to be.” 

“So, I hated you, you were secretly in love with me, and there was a war going on,” he says thoughtfully. “How did this happen?”

I tell him about the vampire bar. About his magic, clearing the road. About the forest fire. About him never turning his back on me. 

About how he kissed me, surrounded by burning trees.

He looks equal parts captivated and destroyed.

“I don’t remember.” His voice wrenches on the last syllable. 

“I know,” I say quietly.

“I don’t remember the sound of the forest fire,” he whispers. “I don’t remember the feeling of magic. I can’t hear the words you said that night. I can’t feel your hands on my skin.” His voice catches, and his gaze drops. “But I’ll love you until I can’t remember how.”

His eyes fill with tears, and his forehead rests against my face, and we both fall asleep there.

…

He ends up remembering Penny as a very old friend, his first roommate out of school, and we all breathe a little easier as he throws his arms around her when she comes to visit.

“She’s a familiar face,” he tells me later. “I won’t forget her. She’s a part of me.”

Penny ends up being a better storyteller than I am, and they chatter for a while about Watford, and his eyes widen when she describes how it felt when he went off.

“It was like a fire,” she says, one afternoon, “that consumed everyone else nearby. You smelled like smoke, and sparks would fly across your skin.”

He snorts. “Was I a mage, or a human stick of dynamite?”

Penny laughs, and I can hear her all the way in the kitchen. “Sometimes, I wasn’t sure myself.”

When she leaves to go home, she hugs me, and I don’t push her away.

“Take care of him,” she says. “He needs you.”

I sneer at her, just for good measure, and she’s grinning when I shut the door.

…

Nothing’s perfect. Nothing will ever be perfect.

But there are worse things than having the love of your life forget all the animosity that existed between you as children.

There are worse things than telling the love of your life how you fell in love, over and over, because it’s his favorite story, and you remember a new detail every time you tell it.

There are worse things than biology textbooks, and pizza, and reminding the love of your life that you’re a vampire, and that he was full of magic, and that he’s still the hero of this story. That he’s still Simon Snow.

He’s still the hero of this story.

And it’s good to remind him every once in a while, that he could wake up one morning, and not even know my name, and I’ll still explain it to him, all over again. (He wrote himself letters, in case that happens. Because neither of us really know if it ever will.)

But for now, we’ve still got our Normal life together, and there are much worse things than that.

**Author's Note:**

> hi, i'm on tumblr! @ bellarkabby


End file.
